Woman arrested in scare in Yemen

Sunday

Oct 31, 2010 at 12:01 AMOct 31, 2010 at 11:38 AM

SAN'A, Yemen - Yemeni police arrested a woman on suspicion of mailing a pair of bombs powerful enough to take down airplanes, officials said yesterday as details emerged about a terrorist plot aimed at the United States that exploited security gaps in the worldwide shipping system.

SAN‘A, Yemen — Yemeni police arrested a woman on suspicion of mailing a pair of bombs powerful enough to take down airplanes, officials said yesterday as details emerged about a terrorist plot aimed at the United States that exploited security gaps in the worldwide shipping system.

Investigators were searching Yemen for more suspects tied to al-Qaida, and several U.S. officials identified the terrorist group’s top explosives expert in Yemen as the most likely bombmaker.

The explosives, addressed to Chicago-area synagogues, were pulled off airplanes in England and the United Arab Emirates early Friday morning, touching off a tense search for other devices.

It still was unclear whether the bombs, which officials said were wired to cell phones, timers and power supplies, could have been detonated remotely while the planes were in the air, or when the packages were halfway around the world in the United States. But the fact that they made it onto airplanes showed that nearly a decade since the Sept. 11 attack, terrorists continue to probe and find security vulnerabilities.

The packages were addressed to two synagogues in the Chicago area. But British Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday that he thinks the explosive device found at the East Midlands Airport in central England was intended to detonate aboard the plane.

British Home Secretary Theresa May added that the bomb was powerful enough to take down the plane. A U.S. official said authorities think a second device found in Dubai was similarly potent.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said that the United States and United Arab Emirates had provided intelligence that helped identify the woman suspected of mailing the packages.

She was held as part of a widening manhunt for suspects thought to have used forged documents and ID cards, Yemeni officials said. A Yemeni security official said the young woman was a medical student and that her mother also has been detained. One member of Yemen’s anti-terrorism unit said the other suspects had been tied to al-Qaida.

The officials, like many in the United States, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation unfolding on three continents.

Al-Qaida’s Yemen branch, known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, took credit for a failed bombing aboard a Detroit-bound airliner last Christmas. The bomb used in that attack contained PETN, an industrial explosive that was also used in the mail bombs found Friday.

The man thought to be the bombmaker behind the Christmas Day attack, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, also is the prime suspect in the mail-bomb plot, several U.S. officials said. Al-Asiri also helped make another PETN device for a failed suicide attack on a top Saudi counterterrorism official last year.

Officials said the plot was discovered thanks to intelligence passed from Saudi Arabia. Without that tip, it’s unclear whether anyone would have discovered the bombs before they were airborne — or on U.S. soil.

Currently, American officials do not get details about the contents of a U.S.-bound cargo plane until four hours before it’s scheduled to land. In the case of long-distance flights, those planes would already be airborne. Once a plane lands, officials screen packages that they think warrant a closer look.

The failed attack should be a wake-up call that the United States needs to step up security on cargo planes, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Kit Bond, said.

U.S. officials were still cobbling together details about the packages, but one official briefed on the investigation said authorities thought the plotters might have been associated with two institutions called “Yemen American Institute (for) Languages-Computer-Management” or the “American Center for Training and Development.”

It was unclear whether those institutions exist or whether that information came from false documents or fake addresses.

The United States temporarily banned all incoming cargo and mail from Yemen. A UPS employee in Yemen said the office has stopped accepting any packages for delivery.

In Chicago, the leader of a North Side synagogue told members of his congregation at weekend services that a smaller congregation that uses their building was one of the targets of the plot.

Rabbi Michael Zedek of Emanuel Congregation said he was told by a Jewish leader in Chicago that the smaller Or Chadash congregation was one of the targets. The FBI did not confirm that, and both Zedek and Chadash Rabbi Larry Edwards said they had not spoken to law enforcement.

Or Chadash members took the news calmly, Edwards said. The synagogue, which has about 100 members, serves lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered Jews and their families.

The White House said Obama’s counterterrorism chief John Brennan called Yemen’s president and made it clear that the United States is ready to help the Yemeni government in the fight against al-Qaida. The United States already assists Yemen with airstrikes and other counterterrorism support.

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